One year since Sun Microsystems began volume shipments of its mainframe-class Solaris server, the company is announcing that its Sun Enterprise 10000 (also known as the Starfire) server, is blazing a path to the top of the high-end UNIX server market - a market in which Sun had not competed just 18 months ago. The Starfire server has gained worldwide acceptance, with customers in 37 countries. Global 1000 companies are making significant commitments to Sun`s technology: Many have deployed multiple Starfire systems, with the largest customer having 14 of the award-winning servers. According to Jay Bretzmann, vice president, International Data Corporation (IDC), an independent research firm, "Starfire represents Sun`s first push into the high-end market, and Sun is one of the first traditional midrange vendors in many years to successfully enter this previously unchartered territory. Sun`s intentions to provide features, functions and service offerings familiar to IS executives is a major contributing factor toward Sun`s initial success in the high end." IDC`s preliminary 1997 Server Report showed that Sun debuted at #8 in the high-end server category even though the Starfire product had been shipping for less than a year. IDC defines high-end systems as those costing $1 million or more. Furthermore, the Starfire server took Sun to the number two position on the TOP-500 list of the most powerful computers in the world.
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